May 16, 2017 “There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run.” – Gordon Lightfoot, “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” The train from Winnipeg to Toronto is a return to another era—with a few new disadvantages. One
May 15, 2017 Canadians often refer to their seventh-largest city as “Winterpeg.” There are far colder places, to be sure, but winter does seem to have a long run there. Measurable snow can fall at any time from mid-October to
May 8, 2017 (Part two) I don’t have much past recollection of Manitoba, a place I once passed through on the way West way back in the 1970s. I suppose I mostly remember the north woods giving way to the
May 8, 2017 The highlight of my last full day in the U.S. was in Hallock, Minnesota, almost as far northwest as you can get in the of Land of 10,000 Lakes, fewer than 10 miles from the Red River
May 3, 2017 To a kid who loved to look at maps and had a dog-eared road atlas next to his bed, Thief River Falls, Minnesota, always seemed at the edge of known territory. Of course there is much of
May 2, 2017 I’m moving right along across Northwestern Minnesota, where spring is tentative at this latitude (now 48 degrees), but the early signs are there, more like early April in places where I’ve spent most of my life. In
April 27, 2016 The image that accompanies this post explains almost as much as I can, although it may be a little more innocent than the reality. Or, strangely, the “Forecast Discussion” section of the National Weather Service site for
April 24, 2017 (Part 2) Southwest Minnesotans complain that their agricultural heartland is sometimes ignored by the rest of the state. Actually, it’s a claim that could be made by almost any region of a state dominated in terms of
April 24, 2017 Sometimes other demands on my time take over. It’s been more than a week since I posted a blog entry; the reasons for the delay are many: the progress of the trip, weather, personal matters, just trying
Here’s a link to a radio podcast they did of me in Montevideo, Minnesota (you have to scroll down their page): http://podcast.ruralsolutions.com/wordpress/